In U.S. Pat. No. 458,542, issued Aug. 25, 1891 to Thomas W. Welsh, and assigned to the assignee of the present application, there is shown and described a pair of pipe or hose couplings, the construction and manual operation of which is substantially the same as the hose couplings used on the rolling stock owned by the American railroads to couple the air hoses at the adjacent ends of each pair of railway vehicles in a train to form a continuous train brake pipe that extends from the locomotive to the back end of the last car in the train. Unwanted uncoupling of a pair of coupled hose couplings may occur as the result of a piece of flying ballast, or other object, striking one of the couplings with a force of such magnitude that the struck coupling is rotated, relative to the other coupling, a sufficient amount to cause uncoupling of the two coupled hose couplings. Such an unwanted uncoupling of the two coupled hose couplings effects a release of fluid under pressure from the train brake pipe at an emergency rate which causes an undesired emergency brake application to be effected on each vehicle in the train thereby bringing the train to a stop. Such an undesired stop increases the time for the train to travel between two terminals and, therefore, causes an increase in the cost of operating the train.
Accordingly, it is the general purpose of this invention to provide a novel hose coupling on the exterior of the hollow body of which is rockably mounted intermediate its ends a locking member, one end of which constitutes an operating handle. The other end of this locking member is of such a configuration as to constitute a stop which is manually rockable by the operating handle out of the pathway of the guard arm of the other one of a pair of hose couplings to be manually coupled prior to rotating the two hose couplings to their fully coupled position. The configuration of the stop is such that, when the two hose couplings reach their fully coupled position, it will be so disposed in the pathway of the guard arm of the other one of the pair of fully coupled hose couplings as to prevent unwanted uncoupling of the two coupled hose couplings.